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How do you turn a negative customer experience into a positive one?
After a long day of snowboarding, we pulled into a mcdonalds, placed and received our orders, only to find out that items were missing. The driver, visibly upset, pulled back around to complain and was met with an apology, the missing items and free ice creams for each of us. It cost them next to nothing and made a big difference. We went from hungry and impatient to almost glad that they messed up our order.
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6 Answers
Great responses so far. A negative customer experiences is one of your greatest opportunities to create a loyal customer. I don't recommend creating a negative experience, but when it happens, this is your company's chance to SHINE!! Most companies offer mediocre customer service when things go well, and it slides downhill quickly when challenges arise. 1)Train your staff on how you want them to handle tough situations. This is not the time to wing it. 2)Teach them to listen without offering excuses. They have 2 ears - open them. And 1 mouth, shut it. 3)Empower them to turn it around into a great experience. They shouldn't have to consult a manager. They should be able to handle it. 4)Offer a consolation, a discount, a rebate, ice cream! 5)Extend your contact information so if they want to gripe later, they do it with you and not on a YouTube video.
There are many models to successfully turn negative customer experiences into positive ones. This is what they all have in common:
1) Listen... really Listen... to the customer's complaint.
2) Take the complaint serious even if it is small in your eyes.
3) Resolve the complaint and if you are unable to do so at that given moment, take ownership of resolving the complaint.
4) Offer apologies for not meeting the customer's expectations right away.
When you look at Alan's example, that is exactly what McDonalds did:
They listened to the complaint, took it serious and resolved it. The ice cream gesture showed they took it serious and did what was needed to turn the customer's experience around.
Research has shown that the best service companies rely on one key factor in dealing with complaints - the employee who is presented with the complaint (or negative experience) is empowered to resolve it. The customer should never be passed on to someone else to deal with the problem.
Once this is in place within your organisation, the necessary support mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the employee can resolve the issue quickly.
Front line staff must have the right to solve the complaint, ie offering the ice cream and sincerely apologize to the customer.
1) Listen to what the customer is complaining about. Be sincere when you ask how you can make them happy. Be honest.
2) Do you have the power to fix it? Yes then thank the customer for taking the time to voice their concerns. Free desert or appetizer work well in the Restaurant. NO then make sure that you pass them on to the person who can fix it quickly.
3) Too often companies do not empower their frontline staff to calm the customer. Sadly we take our business to companies who can make us feel valued.
4) Be cheerful when dealing with client and solve their problem.
Embracing mistakes has to be part of your culture and understood by all involved that they are opportunities. Frontline employees not only need to have the authority to fix problems at the point-of-experience, they must also have the emotional maturity (and Coaching) to understand that mistakes give you an opportunity to show-off your ability to solve problems as well as show your appreciation for the feedback from the guest. Coaching employees about the recovery process is critical to long-term guest and staff loyalty. Research tells us that when we exceed guest expectations during the recovery process, they are 90% more likely to return and tell someone about the positive experience. This is powerful.
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